


K-Science Shenanigans

by Trifoliate_undergrowth



Series: Drift Compatible [1]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Burns, Gen, Humor, I was gonna make this G then I remembered theres swearing so like. thats. basically the only reason, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mild Injury, Mutual Pining, Newt is drinking the denial juice (still. somehow.), Newton Geiszler Has ADHD, Slice of Life, and other Chaotic Vibes, hermann is at least self-aware but Not Going To Ever Admit It, hilariously bad apologies, if i were in love with him i wouldnt do it because i wasnt no i did <3, jokes about hermann's HR complaints about Newt being mildly annoying being ignored, newt won't do his own laundry so hermann does it for him and then they yell at each other about it, one-sided denial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26397331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trifoliate_undergrowth/pseuds/Trifoliate_undergrowth
Summary: “What do you mean what happened why are you yelling at me?” yelled Newton.“I’m not yelling, you’re yelling! Now what happened?!” Dr. Gottlieb yelled, slightly louder.“Nothing! Nothing happened! Why are you on my side of the room?”“You screamed!”“I what! I did not scream! I did not—okay I may have yipped a bit but I did not scream! Unless you mean when you startled me just now, in which case yes I did scream, but that’s your fault!”Dr. Gottlieb sighed loudly. “Oh alright then, fine, why did you yip?”God the way he said that was so condescending. Newt suddenly wished he’d used a different word. This was not better.
Relationships: Newton Geiszler & Hermann Gottlieb, Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb
Series: Drift Compatible [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1924330
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	1. Scales

Newt hadn’t slept much, which happened sometimes when his brain just refused to shut off at the end of the day, which was fine he was used to it but he was a bit more tired than usual and very ready for breakfast by the time he flung open the salvaged weapons locker he was using as a wardrobe and remembered that he needed to do laundry and in fact had been needing to do laundry for about a week and kept scraping by by either re-wearing clothes that still looked clean or dipping into the small stash of technically clean clothes he hadn’t worn before because they needed to be ironed and he kept forgetting to iron them and yesterday he’d worn a shirt that looked like it wasn’t badly wrinkled until he put it on at which point he realized no it actually was wrinkled but he sure wasn’t going to take it back off again to iron it and waste valuable breakfast time so he just wore it hoping no one would notice but Guess Who Fucking Noticed and his stuffy colleague DOCTOR You-Will-Not-Address-Me-By-My-First-Name-In-Public GOTTLIEB had called him “a _disgrace_ ” in front of literally everyone in the cafeteria and you know what? You know what? He had better fashion sense than that grandma-glassess-wearing vintage cardigan collector and he was going to show him up today so goddammit it looked like he was going to actually have to do some ironing for once.

He did have an iron. Somewhere.

He stood in the middle of his room, one hand vindictively clenching the sleeve of the wrinkled shirt as he furiously tried to remember the location of the iron.

Under the kaiju posters he kept forgetting to put up because he couldn’t decide whether to group them chronologically, by class or by how nice the colors looked together, in the Box of Eternally Unsorted Items he was Going to Do Something With Later (Probably) and Therefore Couldn’t Put Away. Where he’d put it the last time he had to iron something.

He dove into the box like a terrier after a rabbit, first moving the posters aside with loving care and setting them on his bed before digging through the rest of the box’s contents, finally pulling up an iron by the cord with the kind of triumphant laugh that made Dr. Gottlieb jump and look over his shoulder and ask ””what abomination he’d created now”” when he heard it in the lab. Which was _not_ something he could reasonably say about his outfit today because it was going to be _good_. (Dr. Gottlieb would probably hate it because he hated FASHION but honestly? Honestly? That was just another selling point for Newt).

The ironing board he knew the location of because it was an albatross he was constantly moving out of his way and shoving into a different corner because there was nowhere it really _went_. Under the bed was where he hid his Illegal Materials (he’d been stockpiling stuff he thought he might need if Marshall okayed the kaiju drift experiment but made him find or make (make, it would be make, he knew the jaeger techs wouldn’t help him out with this) his own neural bridge. Or if, you know. Marshall didn’t okay the experiment. He was trying to not think about that too much because hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. Anyway, a lot of that stuff was fragile so he couldn’t really just shove an entire ironing board under there and there wasn’t anywhere else it fit that wasn’t underfoot at least sometimes. So it was a pain in the ass, so he knew exactly where it was.

He unfolded it with a clatter, pinching one of his fingers in the process, plugged in the iron and cranked it up to the highest heat setting.

He waited for a couple seconds, tapping his fingers impatiently on the ironing board, before holding his hand by the iron. Not hot. It was plugged in? It was plugged in. He gave the metal an experimental tap. Just barely warm.

Fine fine fine he could wait. He started pacing, snatched up one of the posters and waved it in the air like a baton. Which wall was he going to put these on? That one spilling onto that—well, that would look uneven; maybe if he used his original plan and—which direction was this wall facing? North? Was this one north? One of these walls was right next to the cafeteria but he could never remember what it was—speaking of the cafeteria that tech Antony said he was going to show him his kaiju trading cards today if he could find them and he had Yamarashi and he wanted to see that one, and was the iron hot yet? He felt it. No it was not.

Yamarashi’s weight had been unrivaled by any other class III, which got him thinking about the differenced between class III and IV and how arbitrary they sometimes were, which reminded him of the wonderful uniqueness present in each kaiju despite their frankly befuddling similarities, which was a train of thought that could (and regularly did) keep him going for hours but he wanted breakfast and the iron was probably hot but those cells he’d found—those identical cells—he needed to do more tests, just how many could he find? He had an idea that they _all_ shared DNA but he couldn’t really say that without getting his hands on a few more samples—still, even the two he’d worked with—(he fumbled the shirt off the hanger and flapped it in the air, only half paying attention to it)—but he had to be careful how much he asked for at once, he still couldn’t believe just how much the research department had been cut back; he was glad to still be there—they _needed_ him there, though he wasn’t sure how much they realized that—but anyway, with how penny-pinching Marshall had gotten he didn’t want to make himself too much of a nuisance, especially not right before he’d need to ask for an entire pons system once he’d figured out how to connect to the kaiju brain in the—

He snapped back to reality, slowly processing his last few motions in the real world. He’d slapped the shirt down on the ironing board, leaving his hand on top of it, picked up the iron with his other hand and then tried to iron his hand instead of the shirt. Oh nice the iron was hot now by the way. He dropped the iron, then jumped backwards with a hiss, afraid he’d burn his feet next, but in an uncharacteristic move he avoided making the situation even worse and didn’t burn anything else. Just his hand. Oh ouch by the way that really kind of stung. NEVERMIND, BREAKFAST

He was ABSOLUTELY showing Dr. Gottlieb up today because this was a very nice shirt that he should really wear more often but it had a tendency to get wrinkled and he had a tendency to not want to iron things, but ironed it was very nice, grey but with a subtle half-iridescent scale pattern that showed up in flashes when he moved. It was also extra tight so he could pair it with his extra tight pants without feeling off-balance, which was great. The final touch was his trademark narrow tie, which he snatched on his way out the door and tried to knot while he was walking, which didn’t go great. He nearly tripped and then he rubbed the fabric against the knuckle he’d burned and hurt himself and then he got confused about what part of the knot he’d already done and he should really be doing this in front of the mirror but he was at the cafeteria and he seemed to have some kind of knot done so he let it be and started looking for Dr. Gottlieb, who was probably wearing 5 sweaters and his grandfather’s shirt. There he was, sitting with the Russians. He was wearing a green cardigan over another sweater, or maybe it was a sweatervest (even MORE nerdy!) he couldn’t tell—but seriously how many sweaters does one man need?? Absolute disaster, he had _no_ business commenting on Newt’s clothes today.

Newt grabbed a tray and joined them, swinging a leg over the seat opposite Dr. Gottlieb. People who were less amused by Dr. Gottlieb’s prickly attitude tended to leave space around him, which was great for Newt because he frankly loved seeing how far he could push his new lab partner before he filed another workplace harassment complaint. When they first moved to using the same lab space Dr. Gottlieb had reported him every time a piece of kaiju remains ended up on his side of the room, but now it took something especially bothersome, like accidentally setting the shared coffeemaker on fire, which he liked to pretend was one of his proudest moments as a professional mischief-maker to cover up for the fact that he still wasn’t sure how it had even happened in the first place. And he missed the coffee.

“Morning!” he said.

“You’re late,” said Sasha, “you missed the biscuits.”

“Yeah I know they were out of them by the time I got down—oh thanks!” he said as she tossed one onto his plate. Dr. Gottlieb, who’d been absorbed in extracting a suspicious dark object from his eggs, finally looked up and narrowed his eyes at him. Excellent.

“Newton, _what_ happened to your tie?”

Aww darn yeah his tie. Of course he’d notice the one thing off about an otherwise A+ outfit. “Nothing!” said Newt, slathering jam on his biscuit.

“Newton, that’s not a knot, that’s a tangle.”

“Hey, eat some jam and shut up. What’s the plan for today?”

“More practice run for us,” said Sasha, “hopefully no real fighting if your friend’s math is right. Two weeks, Gottlieb?”

“Twelve days give or take one,” said Dr. Gottlieb, frowning deeply, glancing back and forth between the unidentified egg smut and Newt’s tie with equal levels of apparent disgust. Then he lurched forward, leaning across the table, and grabbed at the tie.

“HGCKxcuse you?” remarked Newt, coughing crumbs onto Dr. Gottlieb’s sleeve.

“Hold still. You are going to choke yourself if you try to take this off.” He felt him tugging at his tie, muttering under his breath, and then he felt it loosen and Dr. Gottlieb slumped back into his seat, wincing, and dusted the crumbs off his sleeve with a napkin. “Redo that.”

Newt crammed the rest of the biscuit into his mouth, glared at him, and redid his tie, intentionally leaving it even looser than usual, just to piss him off. Sasha looked at Aleksis and said something in Russian which he appeared to agree with.

Overall, a pretty normal start to the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hermann "my fixation on Newton's clothes is entirely heterosexual and professional thank you very much" Gottlieb and Newton "I really like wearing tight pants around my colleague because it makes him uncomfortable and I love that for reasons we are Not Getting Into Right Now Or Ever" Giezler everyone.  
> I've got a bunch of kind of episodic, vaguely connected stuff planned for this, expect more chapters. Next one should be up in a moment, continuation of this. I've also got carpooling chapter planned  
> because  
> you know that would be chaos
> 
> anyways it's been a while since I've written and I"m just tryign to cahnnel the chaotic vibes and get this written before i disappear again 
> 
> oh btw currently at thsi moment have a burn on the back of my hand because yesterday I needed to iron a clean shirt bc I was out of work-appropriate (they're getting more rigid about dress code & not having writing on your shirt) shirts and I burned myself somehow?? still not sure how? anyways. am required to wear gloves to collect orders where I work. took em off adn was like "oh that was not fun" and then immediately "u could make a fanfic out of this" s o


	2. things going actually less bad than expected

Oh the gloves were hell actually.

He’d planned to continue dissecting the portion of kaiju torso he’d been working on and he refused to stop just because he’d burned himself because he was an idiot and his gloves stuck to the burn and also trapped heat and made it very hot. This was fine he could just focus on his work and tune it out. And he did for quite a while, humming as he carefully cut and pinned back slabs of tissue, then he needed to take his gloves off for a moment to make a note of something on the computer, and he tore them off without remembering to be gentle. The plastic snapped across the burn on the back of his hand and he gave a small scream, suddenly remembering. But the gloves were off now so he focused on getting his computer to boot up—and then suddenly something grabbed his shoulder and he screamed again, louder this time, overlapping with Dr. Gottlieb’s “What?”

“AAAGH!”

“What?? What?!”

“ _What_?”

“Newton, what happened??”

“What do you mean what happened why are you yelling at me?” yelled Newton.

“I’m not yelling, you’re yelling! Now what happened?!” Dr. Gottlieb yelled, slightly louder.

“Nothing! Nothing happened! Why are you on my side of the room?”

“You screamed!”

“I what! I did not scream! I did not—okay I may have yipped a bit but I did not scream! Unless you mean when you startled me just now, in which case yes I did scream, but that’s your fault!”

Dr. Gottlieb sighed loudly. “Oh alright then, fine, why did you _yip_?”

God the way he said that was so condescending. Newt suddenly wished he’d used a different word. This was not better.

“Forgot I burned myself and snagged my hand on my gloves but I’m fine now, okay?” he held his hand up. Dr. Gottlieb put his glasses on.

“How on earth did you burn yourself?”

Newt failed to think of a cooler-sounding way to say it before his mouth started working. “Uh I had to iron a shirt because I keep getting preservation fluid on all my clothes and forgetting to wash them and this one was wrinkled okay? And I just kinda? Nicked m’hand.”

“How does that—you burned yourself with an iron? On the _back_ of your hand? _How_ —nevermind.” Dr. Gottlieb limped across the room, moving slower than usual, and Newt realized he’d left his cane leaning against the blackboard. Which raised the question of how he’d crossed the room so fast in the first place. He was still wondering about this when he suddenly realized what cabinet Dr. Gottlieb was opening. That was the one that he’d stuffed everything in when Dr. Gottlieb told him to clean up his side of the room. 

Newt didn’t have time to warn him, only getting out a panicked sputtering sound before Dr. Gottlieb threw the door open. And, for a moment, everything seemed to be fine. Then a (fortunately empty) glass specimen jar tipped over and smashed to bits on the floor, setting off a chain reaction on the way down and knocking out half of the precariously-balanced contents of the cabinet. Dr. Gottlieb stumbled over a collapsing stack of books and clung to the door for balance; the door slowly swung back until it hit the wall, carrying him with it. And then, for a moment, there was blessed silence.

Newt took a deep breath. “UM. In my defense. I DID clean up the room.”

Dr. Gottlieb let go of the door and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, gazing blankly at the mess spread in front of him. A jar lid that had been lazily rolling around the room on its edge finally collided with a table leg and collapsed with a tinny clatter.

“Bring me my cane?” said Dr. Gottlieb, faintly. Newt scuttled across the room for it, turning in alarm when he heard a faint unidentified noise. Dr. Gottlieb had a hand pressed to his face and he was smiling in an odd strained way. He laughed—slowly at first, then all at once in a rush, as if he couldn’t stop himself. Newt sprinted back to him, heart racing.

“Are you alright?”

Dr. Gottlieb kept laughing. Oh God, thought Newt. He was dying. He’d killed him.

“Talk to me, Hermann.”

Dr. Gottlieb gave a final shaky chuckle and cleared his throat, reaching for his cane, which Newt gave him.

“I… yes. Excuse me. Hm." He vibrated slightly in a way that looked painful. "I think we both need a break.”

“Ha, well, not right _now_ , we have—I need to uh, clean this all up, again.”

A final bout of laughter seized Dr. Gottlieb, manifesting more like stifled wheezing. He used his cane to pull a small plastic box closer to him, then clear a second space in the debris, which he tapped briskly. “Sit here.”

Newt sat, a little tensely. “Why?”

“We’re going to do something about that burn.” Dr. Gottlieb picked up the box, which Newt now recognized as their first-aid kit. He’d forgotten it was kept in here. He really ought to remember where it was, considering that he was the one who worked with sharp objects and highly toxic materials. What kind of injuries would Dr. Gottlieb get on that side of the room? Papercuts from leafing through a book too fast? But here they were. And Dr. Gottlieb had grabbed his hand. Had. Uh. That was a new one. Weird feeling. His hands were like. Super dry.

“Um. What?”

Dr. Gottlieb delicately cleaned the burn with an alcohol swab. “Almost done. I don’t think we have any burn ointment in here, but I’m sure we could find some—”

“I, don’t, I’m fine. Don’t need that.”

“Right.” Dr. Gottlieb stuck a bandaid over the burn. “This should help cushion it a little while you’re doing other things.” He paused, then dropped Newt’s hand (Newt shook it out as if to rid himself of the sensation) and turned to look at the realm of chaos they’d unleashed on the lab. The cabinet was just about exactly in the center, so both sides of the lab were now a mess.

“Newton,” he said, sharply, and Newt relaxed a little, realizing that they were back to normal. “If I ever ask you to organize anything ever again… please remind me about this.” He grabbed his cane and struggled to his feet. “Now _we_ are going to fix this and then I am going to go take a nap and hopefully forget that today ever happened.”

“We? Like,”

“Oh I’m going to go sit over here,” said Herman, walking towards his chair, “and you’re going to pick things up and I’ll tell you where to put them, since you are obviously so bad at organizing.”

“Oh, okay, sure.” He couldn’t argue with that, considering recent events.

And that was… not a bad system, actually. Dr. Gottlieb seemed to have a perfect memory of how much storage space was available in the lab, and where—and he yelled at Newt when Newt started to get distracted by other, smaller messes he’d uncovered while taking care of the main mess.

“Oh, is this where I put that—”

“Newt, focus! Don’t make me come over there!” Dr. Gottlieb started to rise, creakily but somehow menacingly, from his chair.

“Right, right, focus get, I have already forgotten what I was interested in in here,” he swung the door shut. Newt, for his part, was very good at doing things fast, so cleaning up really wasn’t the horrifically unending, Sisyphean task he’d been expecting. They were down to the glass and a few odds and ends.

“Where’s this thing go?” he asked, picking up a piece of equipment.

“I don’t know. That’s not yours?” asked Dr. Gottlieb, squinting at it.

“Uh, no, I assumed it was yours, actually.”

“My—I don’t really have equipment, Newton, I have blackboards—and,” his voice soured as he remembered their cut funding, “maybe an absolutely ancient computer, if I’m lucky—”

“Oh my God,” said Newton, shaking the object, which rattled slightly—pieces of the cheap plastic likely breaking down inside. “We’re both idiots.”

“What?”

“It’s a boom box. You know like. One of those like. Radio and CD and tape cassette player things from way back when.”

Dr. Gottlieb stared at the boombox as if willing it to be something else. He put his glasses on and visibly sagged.

“…We _are_ both idiots. But especially you, since you were _holding_ it. … _What is it doing here_?”

“Oh my God that’s why that box of Christian metal CDs from like 2001 is in here,” said Newt, then grinned wildly. “Oh my God. Oh my God we could play one.”

Dr. Gottlieb stiffened. “ _No_.”

After that, it was just a trip to the broom closet and some carefully sweeping up the glass and they were actually done. Like, finished.

“That… did not take as long as I thought it would,” said Newt.

“You’re welcome,” said Dr. Gottlieb, getting up stiffly and stretching. “Think there’s any food out? I might be ready for an early lunch.”

“Second breakfast?”

“Brunch.”

“Elevensies.”

“Stop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Newt: *unearths my personal nostalgia* hahaa cringe.. LETS LISTEN TO IT  
> Guess what my first exposure to metal was Skillet on Christian Radio and in true mom fashion my mom hated it despite it being Christian  
> a n y w a y s my emotional state is like. super off rn so I can't tell if anything needs to be edited or not becuase literally everything feels like it is wrong so the only way I'm going to be able to post this is just churn it out and post it before I can think better of it, this is trash but this is what you're getting I genuinely hope you can enjoy it hhhhhhhhelp


	3. unhelpfulness

Hermann was questioning his sanity. He was supposed to be resting. He’d planned on resting. This was supposed to be a restful day off after the hectic morning. And instead he was doing laundry. Not his own laundry, Newton’s laundry. Which led to… this. Standing in their floor’s shared laundry room, breathing in stale hot air that smelled like a blend of fabric softeners, unable to tear his eyes away from the absolutely absurd article of clothing he was holding. It was like a trainwreck.

It was a pair of boxers—children’s, according to the tag; he’d had to buy them in a very large size—printed with cartoon kaiju and jaegers punching each other over a bright red background.

Hermann was pretty sure he could feel years draining off his life. But he also kind of wanted he laugh and he wasn’t sure if it was a “losing my mind” kind of laugh or a derisive laugh or an affectionate laugh. _That was just such a Newt thing to do. Of course he bought children’s kaiju underpants,_ he couldn’t stop thinking, like a broken record _. Of course he would._

He suddenly realized that several of the other machines were in use and anyone could walk in at any moment to check on them and he would have to explain why he was staring at a pair of cartoon kaiju underpants as if they held the answer to the mysteries of the universe and there was no way he could spin this that didn’t sound bad. Claim they were his? Unthinkable. Admit he was doing Newton’s laundry, with all the questions _that_ would raise? Even more unthinkable. He folded the underpants at mach speed and stuffed them into the laundry bag.

Everything else was fairly normal (for Newton.) and could be folded without attracting particular interest or sapping any more years off his life. Now to get the bag back into Newton’s room before he could get back from his yelling-about-trading-cards session with whatshisname…. Tall….. Antony. They’d been deeply absorbed in whatever the hell they were talking about but that had been a while ago now. Hopefully he’d found someone else to yell about kaiju with. Most likely. Newton was good at that. Even if the person in question wasn’t necessarily interested, he’d find a way to talk at them anyway, Hermann thought drily. Hopefully he hadn’t made any more enemies, their department had enough problems as it was.

He started off carrying the bag over his shoulder, then switched to resting it on the floor between steps, swinging it forwards as he moved. He reached the hallway outside their rooms and thought he was home free, because Newton’s door was closed and he’d closed it before he left, but then it wrenched itself open and Newton popped out, looking even wilder than usual.

“Hermann!”

“Newton, I’ve asked you not—”

“Yeah yeah I know sorry dude listen I think someone broke into my room?! Stuff is missing!”

“Your laundry?” He lifted the bag.

“No the fan and the scrap metal I had under my bed and th—wait what?”

“Oh those. I threw them out for you.”

“YOU WHAT? Hang on, _why were you in my room_?”

“You left the door open and it looked an industrial waste dumping site and since today seems to be the day for cleaning up your messes”

“WHERE did you throw them out?”

“What? The junk? Newton, it was broken, and that wasn’t “scrap metal” it was—it was broken, rusty tin sheet, I can’t imagine why you—”

“SHUT UP I WANT IT BACK! WHERE IS IT?”

“Down the chute, Newton! Where the garbage goes! Why do you need a broken fan anyway?”

“I—!” He froze, obviously furious but unable to formulate a reasonable response. “I HAVE REASONS OKAY?! And it’s gone? You can’t just come into my room and throw things out!”

“Maybe you should lock your door.” Hermann was getting a headache. So much for being _thanked_. Well, at least it wouldn’t be _awkward_.

“It’s still an invasion of privacy!”

“Oh, maybe you should write a complaint. We both know how much good _that_ does around here.”

“Maybe they’d listen to me with my ACTUAL COMPLAINT that isn’t just OH BOOHOO MY LAB PARTNER TALKS TOO LOUD SOMETIMES!”

“That was never the issue and you know it perfectly well. Don’t suppose you’d thank me for—”

“FOR BREAKING INTO MY ROOM AND STEALING MY STUFF??”

“The! Door! Was! _Open_! And it was GARBAGE, Newton! GARBAGE! I nearly lost a foot on the edge of that tin sheeting, I don’t know how you managed to move in there without killing yourself!”

“Well I don’t come in _your_ room and throw out books or, I don’t know, whatever useless shit _you_ keep in there!”

Newton had come closer as he yelled, now almost close enough for Hermann to feel his breath on his face. Entirely too close, and he decided he was done with this.

One unexpected upside of using a cane was that people tended to assume that he was weak overall, when actually he was decent at anything that didn’t involve putting lots of weight on the one leg in particular and had actually quite good upper body strength thank you very much. He swung the laundry bag up briskly, slammed it directly into Newton’s chest and let go. Newton’s eyes widened for a moment in shock as he stopped mid-screech, breath knocked out of his lungs, and dropped into a sit on the floor.

“You’re welcome,” said Hermann, stepping around him.

Optimally, that would be it, he’d slip into his room with a curt one-liner, having got the last word, and he could just… avoid Newt until tomorrow when they’d both had time to calm down and they could both hopefully just not talk about this. But his lock had jammed. Because of course it had.

Several seconds passed in silence, except the sound of Hermann struggling with his lock in increasing desperation.

“This is my laundry,” said Newton in a tone of stunned revelation. Evidently he hadn’t quite processed that part before. Hermann furiously jiggled his lock. “Did,” Newton said, “Did you uh. Did you”

“THE KAIJU UNDERPANTS?” said Hermann, because he was having a stroke and the lock still wouldn’t work. “YES. THEY ARE UNDER THE BLUE SHIRT—” the lock unjammed. He scrabbled with it and dove into the forgiving darkness of his room, slamming the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (remember the Garbage Under Newt's Bed That He's Hoarding To Make a Neural Bridge Out Of Someday?)   
> anyways  
> this concludes arc 1: clothing shenanigans  
> I do have more planned but we know how I am with PLANNING AND NEVER WRITING THINGS so WE'LL SEE. I do definitely want to write some more. at least the carpool section because oh my God. oh my God.


	4. PRANKED

Newt was a man of science and this was a perfectly logical thing to do. Hermann broke into his room (ok so maybe the door was unlocked _he still wasn’t supposed to just walk in and he knew that_ ) and messed with his stuff, so he broke into Hermann’s room and now he was drawing chibi kaijus on his shaving mirror with a bar of soap. This was a completely reasonable retaliation and the fact that he was cackling under his breath like an evil witch did not invalidate the fact that this was a logical and normal thing to do.

He hadn’t really known what he was planning to do when he broke in. His vindictive streak wanted to methodically destroy everything he could get his hands on, but he didn’t want Hermann to murder him, just… maybe think about what he was doing next time before he started throwing someone else’s stuff away! And, okay, maybe experience some of the fear that Newt had experienced. Beyond that, he hadn’t had any concrete plans, because he didn’t really know what to expect. He’d never actually been in here before. Some part of him was surprised not to find an antiquarian’s library with polished wood floors and pillars behind the door when he opened it. Instead, the room was, as might be expected, physically about the same as his own, though he thought, peevishly, that it might be a little bigger. Then again maybe that was an optical illusion because it was more organized and therefore had more open space.

There _were_ books, carefully arranged on a narrow shelf above the bed. (Vindictive Newt briefly considered tearing out all the pages one by one, but nah, he wasn’t _that_ mad. Dr. Gottlieb had thrown out some valuable “garbage”—infuriating, but not intentionally cruel; he hadn’t put his posters through the paper shredder or anything. Now, if that ever happened, he _would_ come back with a vengeance. _Just because he kept forgetting to actually put his posters on his wall didn’t mean he didn’t feel very deeply for them_.)

The second thing he noticed—”Ohhhhh, my Goood!”—was a blue yoga ball. _Newt loved yoga balls_. He jumped onto it immediately and hopped around the room, ricocheting off furniture, almost forgetting why he was here for a few brief moments; then, determined to get back to business and cause the chaos he’d come for, he got up and kicked the ball with his shin, sending it bouncing off the bedside table—knocking a lampshade askew—and across the bed, slightly rumpling the previously-pristine covers. That was a start. OK, what next?

Well, the place looked weirdly average and human, to be honest. No android charging station or correspondence from Vulcan. The two messy spots were the desk—the amount of notes made his head hurt and this was Newt, right, resident god of Chaos—and a tangle of charging cords on the floor.

He started to shuffle the notes, then decided not to. That was just a bit too far. Besides, he didn’t want to be responsible for the idiot’s calculations being way off and everyone dying in the next attack.

He flung the closet open and considered turning all his shirts inside out, which was a hilarious idea but too much effort. Also why was literally everything brown. Brown and green. Kind of drab, earthy colors. Disgusting. Kind of relaxing to look at I guess? If by relaxing you mean boring.

Then he noticed the mirror. He squinted at it.

The bathrooms were commonly-shared between halls, but he like, _never_ ran into Dr. Gottlieb there. He’d never thought about it before but did the man just never shower? Or did he make a real effort to only go when the place was empty and he could avoid Other People? Oh, typical. And here was an old-fashion shaving kit and wash basin so he could shave without leaving his room and rubbing elbows with _the common folk_.

Newt realized he was grinning.

This was perfect because oh my God that was such an insufferably Hermann thing to do and he was going to draw all over his stuffy little introvert mirror so he knew _Newt_ knew he was antisocial and also a coward and also frankly hilarious levels of old-fashioned (holy shit why not just use a clipper it would be so much simpler B U T N O he’s got a fuckign fancy lather brush and everything oh my Goooooodddd) and Newt! Was! Going! To! Draw! Shit! All! Over! His! Perfect! Little! Mirror!

He popped the soap out of the holder, activated the long-dormant “doodling kaijus in my note margins” section of his brain, and started drawing, immediately losing all track of time in his intense focus.

This was great, this was awesome, this was hilarious and also a completely understandable thing to do, really Dr. Gottlieb should only be surprised at his restraint, this was epic and he had exactly zero regrets.

Behind him, he heard someone fumbling with the door lock.

He had! A nonzero amount of regrets!!

The lock, as usual, was refusing to cooperate, meaning that Newt had several agonizing moments to process what was happening.

There. Uh. Wasn’t any other way out of here. Just the one door into the hallway. Which currently had Hermann outside it. Trying to come in. About to come in, and catch him in the act, which, um. Not what he’d planned!

The door started to open and Newt briefly considered diving under the bed to hide but oh God that would only make the whole situation worse. He wasn’t even sure what the worst version of that would be, Dr. Gottlieb finding him crouched under his bed like some sort of childhood night-terrors gremlin and asking what the hell he was doing, or Dr. Gottlieb not finding him and Newt just having to hang out there all night listening to him grumble about the soap vandalism. Terrifying.

And then the door creaked open and Dr. Gottlieb was there and this was a different kind of terrifying. Newt realized he was doing the panic-grin thing and probably looked like an absolute lunatic.

Dr. Gottlieb didn’t seem to notice him for a moment, then he blinked a couple times, stiffened, and squinted at him; then his eyes moved to the mirror.

“What…” he didn’t seem to have fully processed it yet and Newt wasn’t going to give him time to. The second Dr. Gottlieb wasn’t looking at him he unfroze—like a deer coming out of the headlights—gave a maniacal laugh and bolted past Dr. Gottlieb into the doorway, accidentally smacking him with his shoulder on the way.

He, uh. He was pretty sure he just like. Completely knocked him over on the way, actually. He heard an _oof_ followed by a thud and the clatter of a cane falling on the ground. Which made him run even faster because o h G o d that wasn’t supposed to happen and he was _fully_ panicking now.

Aleksis answered the door, and looked at Newt as if he was some strange new lifeform.

“Hey, hi,” said Newt, “Sorry I uh. Haha help?”

Aleksis called over his shoulder and Sasha appeared, staring Newt up and down.

“He wants to know why you are outside our door with soap. I thought I must have misunderstood him, but here you are. Why are you outside our door with soap?”

“Oh I uh. I was gonna—oh my God I do have soap. I am holding soap. Oh my God I am holding soap.”

The Kaidonovskys conversed together briefly, then Sasha stepped closer to him.

“Did you hurt your head?” She tilted his chin up and compared the size of his pupils, then brushed his bangs back, looking for bruises.

“What? No it’s just—I’m fine, I’m not hurt I, uh, didn’t realize I was still holding the soap, that was uh. Oh boy. This just keeps getting worse. I stole his soap.” Newt laughed uncomfortably.

“…I am very confused,” said Sasha.

“Well okay it’s kind of a hilarious story I guess,” said Newt, and launched into an account. It was even more meandering and disjointed than Newt’s stories usually tended to be because Sasha kept pausing him to fill Aleksis in, or to ask Newt to slow down or clarify.

“So—he did your laundry for you,” said Sasha finally, “and so you decided to.. “prank” him?”

“He also threw out a bunch of my stuff!”

“Garbage.”

“Good garbage! I was keeping that garbage, I had plans for that garbage!”

“Right. So, you…”

“Broke into his room to annoy him a little but then he showed up and I panicked and I stole his soap accidentally because I panicked and now I’m too embarrassed to go back can I like, sleep on your floor or something.”

“What. That—Newton surely you can walk past his door. He’s not going to kill you.”

“Not strong enough,” said Aleksis encouragingly.

“You’d think that but I dunno,” said Newt, remembering the weaponized laundry bag. “I bet he could kill me if he really wanted to. Which he probably does right now!”

“He is probably asleep in the time we have been talking. It is alright, give him the soap back and apologize—”

“I’m not sorry! I’m a little sorry! I don’t know I’m kind of still panicking! Am I sorry? I’d probably do it again!”

“Newt, go back to your room and get some rest. Not on the floor. We will see you in the morning.”

So he walked back to their hallway as quietly as possible, waited and listened for a few moments and then peeked around the corner. The hallway was empty. He inched down into his doorway without making a sound and breathed a sigh of relief. Then remembered that the doors sounded like an entire fucking freight train when you tried to open them and died a little inside. Which distracted him from the sound of footsteps.

“Hey Newt!”

He shrieked, spinning and flattening himself against the door.

“Uh,” said Antony, “You ok?”

“OH HI HELLO YES I AM FINE! JUST! SNEAKING INTO MY ROOM TRYING TO BE VERY QUIET PLEASE DON’T TALK TO ME!”

“Newt, you’re yelling, that’s not—”

“SHUT UP!”

“You’re not sneaking, Newt.”

Newt, working on adrenaline, hauled the door open and then slammed it loud enough to make every wall on the block shake and stood against it, cringing.

He heard Antony walking away in the hallway, then silence.

  1. OK. He was asleep. Newt would live until morning.



He got to the cafeteria without running into him in the morning, which he thought was great, but then he realized that it was just prolonging the agony. He kept looking over his shoulder and forgetting to eat and his food was getting cold because Oh God Any Minute Now. Any Minute Now.

“Eat,” Sasha told him.

“Isn’t he usually here by now?”

“Usually. But you did steal his soap. Perhaps he is having trouble getting ready.”

Newt wheezed uncomfortably. “Right. Gosh I hope he isn’t hurt. Oh my God I forgot to tell you about that part.”

“What part?”

“I, uh, think I knocked him over when I ran past him? Maybe? I was panicking and I didn’t really stop to check? Oh my God what if I like hurt him really bad I wasn’t even thinking about that what if he’s dying”

“Newt,” said Sasha pointedly, looking at something behind him.

“Ihavetogocheck,” said Newt, jumping up and backwards and crashing into something which swore in German and showered him in scrambled eggs.

Then for a brief unending moment he was face to face with Dr. Gottlieb, processing the fact that his shoulder had come up right under his tray and flipped it and they were both covered in egg. And also that Dr. Gottlieb was as clean-shaven as usual so he either had more soap or he’d, like, used the soap scum still in the holder. Also that he was right there and Newt had just crashed into him Again.

“HI SORRY GOTTA GO” said Newt and sprinted out of the cafeteria.

Dr. Gottlieb, still mostly in shock, looked at his empty tray for a moment and then brushed egg off his sweater.

“What the hell.”

“Good to see you not dead,” said Sasha. Aleksis had his head down on the table in an expression of defeat and was shaking with silent laughter. Dr. Gottlieb looked up in alarm from wriggling out of the tainted sweater.

“Why on earth would I be dead?”

“Never mind. No, sit down.”

Dr. Gottlieb shooed her away, lowering himself to start sweeping up the mess on the floor. “What’s he all excited about needing to check on, anyway? One of his specimens? I hope it does die. Maybe it’d teach him a lesson.”

“I think he was worried about you actually,” said Sasha.

“Unlikely,” commented Dr. Gottlieb.

“I think Newt becomes very stupid when he is panicking,” said Sasha.

“I think Newt becomes very stupid just… in general. Existing,” said Dr. Gottlieb, struggling back to his feet and calculating the distance back to the food line.

“Also maybe true,” said Sasha. “Sit down, we have biscuits. Maybe he will come back and I will make him apologize for nearly killing you twice.”

“Again, why would I be dead, I’m a little concerned by everyone’s fixation on my mortality this morning, but yes, please make him apologize or he won’t ever do it.”

Newt was rehearsing increasingly bad versions of the world’s worst apology with his kaiju torso as audience.

“So I mean you kind of deserved that in theory but not in practice and I am sorry. Does that… no that doesn’t work either. So, uh, don’t come in my room ever again! Sorry I knocked you over yay I’m a menace haha don’t you love me! Oh my God this is unsalvageable. Not you,” he patted the fleshy mass in front of him, “You’re beautiful. Unlike, uh, whatever the hell is going on with,”

Dr. Gottlieb opened the door to the lab.

“GOOD MORNING,” said Newt.

Dr. Gottlieb gave him a withering glance and crossed to his side of the room without a word.

Newt waited to see if he’d say anything, then, relieved that he hadn’t, went back to cutting. Apologies could wait! Maybe forever! Maybe he’d just develop amnesia about the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. He could hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was talking to a friend about this chapter and I said “Newt is going to keep running away from his problems until he runs headfirst into a bigger problem and knocks himself unconscious” and like. im genius  
> Newt's "apology" : https://trifoliate-undergrowth.tumblr.com/post/629078894137491456/victini-puts-my-hand-on-your-shoulder-listen-i


	5. Guileless

A few hours later, Newt was humming.

Hermann sat down and allowed himself to glance across the room, knowing that Newton would be too deep in his thoughts to notice. Sure enough he had his face right in the kaiju gunk (there was no way that was safe, he wasn’t even wearing a mask!), singing under his breath while he fiddled with tendons and organs.

He’d be like that for the next hour at least. Well, at least one of them was having a good day. Hermann rather envied Newton the singlemindedness of his focus at times—stare at a piece of dead kaiju hard enough and forget you’re fighting with your colleague. Then again, it also got him into trouble. Such as tuning out his surroundings and shotputting a cafeteria tray into the stratosphere. Which he was still waiting on an apology for, by the way, considering he’d lost his breakfast _and_ his sweater, which he’d have to hand-wash later. In the meantime he was cold. Not cold enough to bother walking all the way back to his room for another sweater (and most certainly not cold enough to suffer the indignity of wearing the stained sweater) but cold enough to be bothered by it.

He wasn’t actually that angry (yet. He would be, the longer Newton took to get around to apologizing…) and honestly it was kind of infuriating that Newt couldn’t just be an adult and apologize calmly without—ah there we go when is Newton ever calm.

He looked across at him, head and shoulders inside the kaiju specimen as he examined something up close, finally gone silent in his wonder.

Alright, sometimes, a bit. But he knew that was only because the intensity of his attention was laser-focused on his _lovely specimen_.

Not like he was jealous of a piece of a piece of dead kaiju viscera or anything, because that would be absurd.

Actually, he rather preferred this to, well, actually interacting with Newt. It was quieter, for one thing. …Alright, that was mean, he didn’t mind Newt’s voice. It was easy to follow in a crowded room, and the… lack of guile was endearing, the way he shifted from talking to shouting according to his level of excitement, laying bare every shift of his mood, the way his thoughts acted instantaneously on his body so that his hands were moving sometimes before his mouth had begun to express what he was excited about. On one level it was exasperating—he took up so much space so easily ( _was_ he jealous of that?) and he could be so _loud_ , but at the same time Hermann found that his attention followed wherever Newton went. When they were in groups with other people he had to remind himself to make polite eye contact with an average number of people and turn in the direction of whoever was talking rather than just stare at Newton the whole time. He liked to pretend it was just because Newton was better at—well no he wasn’t because Hermann was constantly jumping in to save him from his faux pas—because Newton was much more comfortable talking to people. So he usually stood back and let him do it. Until he said something stupid, then it was Hermann’s turn to clarify that his colleague wasn’t actually planning to use them all as bait for the Kaiju, he just talked like it would be funny if it happened, Newton, _please_ be a bit more sensitive practically everyone present here has lost someone in the war.

Newton never quite got it. To him it was obvious that kaiju-related deaths were tragedies but also that studying the kaiju was the only way to prevent further deaths, and he didn’t see how his attitude about the whole thing could be off-putting.

Now that he thought about it—much as he disliked having to drag Newton backwards out of complete social disaster every time they talked to normal human beings—he liked it better than being one-on-one with the Newt. (Nicknames were absurd. If he had a child he should name it Salamander. The Newt Family: Newt, Skink, Sally(mander), Polly(wog)…)

Was that it? He wondered, looking across the silent lab at Newton, now quietly tapping information into his computer. When Newton’s focus was turned elsewhere he could stand back and admire the intensity without being personally involved. Maybe psychologically grab him by the collar and drag him out of starting a fight if necessary. When Newton focused on him, the laserlike intensity was almost too much. It was… actually nice in a way, he supposed, but this was much calmer. Just existing in the same room with him while he obsessed over his kaiju bits.

Weren’t you supposed to be more relaxed around people you liked? Wasn’t that how that was supposed to work? None of this made sense. Like how having Newt’s undivided attention made him cringe a little, sometimes a lot (or sometimes less) depending on the day and how antisocial he was feeling, but at the same time he rather enjoyed being the sole witness of the moment’s shenanigans. Nobody else got to see Newton fall flat on the floor because he tripped on his shoelaces and was too fixated on not dropping the specimen he was carrying to worry about breaking his fall, or listen to him descend into incomprehensible mumbling about his research while poking at a skin sample. It felt special. Like confirmation that they shared a special bond. Which was incredibly stupid, but being aware that it was stupid did nothing to shake the feeling. If Hermann’s life had taught him one thing it was that logic was powerless in the face of sheer infatuation, and he’d long ago resigned himself to coast on the feeling and just ride it out for as long as it would last. He’d get over it sooner or later and have a period of blessed peace before (with a soul-deep _oh no not again_ ) finding another unfortunate being to fixate on. He’d long ago given up on trying to act on his feelings. Much better, for everyone, to keep silent and wait it out.

Ah maybe that was why. Newt (treefrog. Fig Newton Treefrog Lizardman the Third, Denizen of the Pond Kingdom), was so transparent that he felt off-balance talking to him, almost dishonest. There was a lot Newton didn’t _need_ to know about him and _unlike Newton_ , _some_ people (him, he was some people) didn’t unthinkingly inflict every one of their whims on everyone around them. (Well now he was being unfair to Newton, he didn’t _always_ … eh, maybe he did. Unless Hermann stopped him.)

He could appreciate it, though. It was often exasperating and had a tendency to get the Fig Newton into trouble, but it was also something he liked about him. You never had to second-guess what Newton was actually saying. If anything you had to hold him back from expressing every single one of his thoughts in a stream-of-consciousness of doom likely to get him punched in the face because most of his thoughts consisted of “big monsters cool!!” and were not suited for conversation with survivors of kaiju attacks without clarification that it never occurred to Newton to provide, such as “my interest directly benefits humanity” and “I’m not saying they’re not deeply unpleasant creatures directly responsible for monstrosities I just get very excited when I talk about them” and “I’m sorry all five of your kids died Carl I’m not saying I think _child death_ is cool when I say I think it’s fascinating how that plasma beam (the one that killed your kids) worked and I wish I could’ve studied it up close (but presumably not as close as your kids were).”

Yeah, that one had been interesting. Newton almost did get punched for that. He didn’t, because Hermann got between them fast enough, but almost.

Hermann realized he’d been zoning out into Newt Thoughts for almost ten minutes without so much as looking at the work he was supposedly doing and straightened up with a grimace. Time to take a coffee break, get his thoughts in order and actually do something rather than mope. Newton obviously wasn’t going to apologize and staring at him really hard wouldn’t do anything but make Hermann question his sanity. He stretched, reached for his cane and left the room.

__

Newton looked up at the sound of the door swinging shut. He was alone in the lab. He found himself relaxing, though he hadn’t realized he was tense.

Newton had a conundrum.

He was excellent at pissing people off, often with no idea how it had happened, and then at avoiding them until they weren't angry. Worked every time. Worked.... Sometimes.

Didn't work great when the person he'd pissed off shared a lab with him and basically hung out in his general vicinity 24/7.

Also he was kind of in shock about how badly he'd escalated the awkwardness like jeez that was a lot even for him.

Also he'd knocked the poor man over like a fucking ninepin and probably hurt him and hadn't even stopped to check because I don't know why, panic brain took over?? Also he'd only seen Hermann actually fall down one single time before and he'd been so mortified by it that Newt swore himself to secrecy without even being asked which honestly considering his usual track record with picking up social cues said a lot about how blatantly uncomfortable it had made Hermann. And this time that was directly Newt's fault! And he'd just left him in the hallway! And he hadn't apologized! And every time he didn't apologize it got weirder and more awkward! But how do you apologize for that!

"Hello yes I was intentionally trying to annoy you half to death but this got really out of hand whoopsies," he tried. No. No way. Terrible. He slapped down a flap of skin with unnecessary briskness. “Hello I am scum pls kill meh ahjahghahg.” Nope one of his exes had given him a TALK about the self-deprecating apologies not actually being apologies because then you’re guilt-tripping the apology recipient into apologizing for making you apologize and that was NOT what he was trying to do but apparently that’s what HAPPENS so DON’T do that.

Maybe he could just like. Write “my deepest apologies for inconveniencing and possibly injuring you on the fifteenth of Wednesday” (oh God that wasn’t a date what month was it? What _year_ was it?) on fancy stationery, fold it into a paper airplane, throw it at him and then leave. No that was… not better. Why did everything he tried to do turn into a joke.

Maybe he could make the Russians apologize for him. Oh, boy, that was maybe the worst idea yet.

Apologies via texting didn’t count right? That was as bad as breaking up with someone via text right? Wait did he even have Hermann’s number? Oh yeah he did! From the carpool thing from forever ago! They had like. Never actually texted. It would be weird to start now.

The door re-opened and Newton immediately hyperfocused on continuing his dissection.

He could deal with that later! Problems always go away if you ignore them long enough! Right!?

“Hello from planet Newt apologies for being an idiot.” Maybe that actually wasn’t the worst. But maybe he could just continue ignoring his problems. That was probably what he was going to do regardless. Yay, problem solving skills nonexistent. But I’m! Really! Damn! Good! At! Filleting! A! Kaiju!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I reference a couple backstory things that will get their own fics in a moment here if I can get myself to write them out! One is character study angst and one is ROAD TRIP FIC which gives me slight anxiety bc like. I LOVE the concept. But I feel like I keep planning to write them (CORE, that Undertale fic from forever ago, was going to have a road trip section!!) and then I abandon the idea and it doesn’t actually happen and I feel like it’s a curse I have to break by actually writing this one.  
> Also.   
> Newton’s brain about the whole Situation here is just playing the “NOW YOU FUCKED UP” skyrim crab mod audio on endless loop. (also. Look up the skyrim crab now you fucked up mod. Can’t figure out how to make links work here anymore but its on youtube.)


	6. Bite the Bullet

“Are you two fighting?” asked Sasha, watching Newton meander towards them across the caf and get distracted talking to someone.

“What makes you ask that?” asked Hermann, tiredly, paradoxically Not Looking At Newt while also keeping tabs on his location at all times.

“You’re both acting weird. Aleksis said you were fighting less—”

“So what makes you think we’re fighting _more_?”

“It’s different. Normally you fight about silly things.”

“We do _not_ ,” said Hermann.

“You know what I mean,” said Sasha. “Now you just don’t talk.”

“Maybe that’s better. As you pointed out, we’re not fighting.”

Sasha just looked at him, not fooled. He sighed.

“Alright. Yes.”

“Has he still not apologized for… “pranking” you? Or whatever that was?”

“Nope.”

Sasha commented on this in Russian, rolling her eyes. “I will talk to him.”

“You don’t have to, really. It’s fine.”

“No it isn’t. It’s making me nervous being around the two of you like this. It’s not natural.”

Hermann made a vague gesture, but didn’t say anything else because Newt was within earshot. He joined them in a moment, dropping his tray on the table with a carelessness that sent his coffee splashing in all directions (it mercifully avoided Hermann’s sweater, this time.) “Good morning!”

“Stop fighting with your friend,” said Sasha.

Oh, okay, we’re uh. We’re doing this right now then. Hermann became deeply interested in stirring his coffee and pretending to ignore the whole thing.

“What?” said Newton blankly.

“You’re both acting weird and I’m tired of it,” said Sasha. “It must be even worse in that lab of yours. Do you even talk anymore?”

“I mean, we don’t normally talk that much? I didn’t think there was any difference?” said Newton.

 _Oof_. Hermann took a long sip from his coffee, giving the Newt a judgmental glance over the rim. 

Sasha gave Newton a long look, then said “Sure. Well, I don’t care how, but do something,” and returned her attention to her breakfast. Hermann gave a silent exhale of relief. Newton continued to ignore him. At least, until they ended up alone in the elevator.

“Actually she does have a point and I’m sorry,” he said all at once with no lead-up and no breaths in between.

“Pardon?” said Hermann, not about to let him off easily. Newt fidgeted.

“It’s been weird and also I am sorry for knocking you over that was unintentional. And the eggs.”

“What?? Oh, _that_. Newton that was five days ago. You’re apologizing _now_?”

“I was, uh, thinking of a way to apologize, before.”

“And _this_ is what you came up with.”

“I didn’t say I was good at it!”

“You’re not.”

“Great, thanks, now it’s your turn to apologize.”

“Get back to me in five days,” said Hermann with a smile, and Newt scoffed loudly.

That day Newton turned on the mysterious vintage boom box the second Hermann left the room and Hermann got back and yelled at him, and then they forgot to work and argued for half an hour about whether the kaiju were driven to eat by hunger, instinct, bloodlust or some combination, whether and what they _needed_ to eat, and good lord Newton it looks like an earthquake hit your side of the room this is simply hideous.

“You’re smiling,” Sasha commented at dinner. “Back to normal, then?”

Hermann glanced over at Newt, currently pissing off one of the J-techs, and wondered if he had time to eat a few more bites of dinner before he needed to step in.

“I suppose so,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is short but it needed a conclusion and now it's got one  
> WHAT IS THIS?? ME FINISHIGN A CHAPTER FIC?? maybe I can actually complete the planned series, here!   
> (The ideas got away with me and there was too much tone and theme difference between them so I decided to make a short series of separate ficlets rather than one long one) next up is Hermann character study which also touches on why Newt was so jumpy about the fact that he crashed into him (this was not that deep when I originally wrote this part of this first fic... It was all haha funney and then I thougth about it all too much and.... it all got deep... and angsty.. and developed a plot...... and here we are workign on a series.)   
> anyways I actually have half of that written write now so hopefully see you with that in a bit here I think this blast of writing activity will last long enough to finish n post today

**Author's Note:**

> 9/14/20 I got too many of these vaguely-connected scenes, they developed a plot and became tonally dissonant with each other, I think I'm going to make this a series of shorter stories wh o o p stay tuned for a concluding chapter of this and then a road trip fic and then ?? actual feels?? in my good christian humor idiocy


End file.
